Illuminated sign.



' R, W WILEY.

ILLUMINATED SIGN. v APPLIOATIO'N FILED JULY 1011913. I 1

Patented Jan. 5, 1915.

lllll WITNEDSES I l I 1 ATTORNEY llNil'lED srai ns Parana orricn ROY R. WILEY, 0F BUFFALO, NEW YORK.

ILLUMINATED' SIGN.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ROY R. l VILEY, a citizen of the United States, residing at Buffalo, in the county of Erie and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Illuminated Sign, of which the following is a specification.-

This invention has reference to improvements in illuminated signs, and more par ticularly to light transmitting characters for such signs, and its object is to provide a sign character especially adapted for night illumination from the side thereof remote from that observed, but so constructed that light reaching the character from the same side as that observed will be in most part returned to the observer, wherefore the char acter while brilliantlyilluminated at night is also brilliantly illuminated by daylight, the daylight illumination being by reflection, while the night illumination is by transmission and refraction.

In accordance with the present invention the sign characters, although they may be made of any suitable light transmitting me dium, are preferably made of glass with the visible side or face of the character in relief and of lens-like cross section so as to be more or less magnifying, while that face of the sign character remote from the observer and which may, therefore, be termed the rear face of the sign character, has a multitude of prisms thereon so arranged that light striking the prisms from either the observed or the rear face of the character is broken up into a multitude of difierently directed rays. Such rays traverse the relief face of the character and are sufficiently diverted to be seen by the observer from angles almost, if not quite coincident with the plane of the observed face of the sign.

The outer or visible facebf the relief character may be in the form of a group of elongated and substantially parallel partial cylinders coalescing at their meeting edges and conforming to the length of the stroke of the character. or in the, case of curved letters having a' similar'curvature in the direction of the length of such curvature. Such forms are to a greater or less extent lens-like and, therefore, magnifying and are provided with a prismatic backing, so as to become visible'both atnight and in day time to a marked extent and at great angles of observation.

With a source of illumination directly Specification of Leters Patent.

Patented Jan. 5, acre.

Application filed July 10, 1913. Serial No. 778,337.

back of the sign character thus constructed, whether or not such illuminating source be reinforced by a reflector, and particularly when a light toning-down means is interposed between the source of'light and the sign character in the manner set forth in Letters Patent No. 1,081,800, granted to Wiley, l Viley and Hough, J r., on December 16, 1913, for improvements in illuminated signs, the observer will see an illuminated sign character as though backed up by a source of light as large as the character and tailed description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specification, with the further understanding that while the drawings show a practical form of the invention, the latter is not confined to any strict conformity with the showing of the drawings, but may be changed and modified so long as such changes and modifications mark no material departure from the salient features of the invention.

In the drawings :-Figure 1 is an elevation of a portion of an illuminated sign having sign characters constructed in accordance with the present invention' Fig. 2 is a more or less schematic cross section on the line 22 of Fig. 1, and drawn ona larger scale. Fig. 3 is a section on the line 33 of Fig. 1,'omitting distant parts and drawn on a somewhat larger scale than Fig. 1. Fig. 4 is a section similar to that of Fig. 3 but showing a modification. Fig. 5 is a plan view on an enlarged scale of a form of prismatic surface which maybe employed.

Referring to the drawings, there is shown a casing 1 provided with openings normally closed by doors 2 each hinged at one edge, usually the upper edge in the installed struc* ture, to such casing, the hinges belng indicated at 3, while at the lower edge of the door there is a fastening device 4 of any suitable character, whereby access to the interior of the sign casingjmay' be had at any time. No showing is made of the interior construction of the casing, since such construction may correspond to the showing of the aforesaid Letters Patent with respect to light giving means, reflecting means, and light toning down means.

The doors 2 are customarily made of metal with openings therein conforming to the shape of the sign character, so that only the latter is illuminated by either artificial or daylight.

Each sign character is usually independent of the others and is individual to a door. The sign character comprises a glass plate 5 having relief portions 6 thereon rising from the outer face of the plate 5, which may be quite flat, in a manner to be more or less convex, while the rear face of the plate 5 is formed with many prisms 7 so arranged as to in many instances totally reflectto the eye of the observer light reaching them from the front, such light being more or less refracted by the lens-like form of the generally convex raised sign character.

The outer face of the lens-like sign char acter has the strokes each made of associatedclongated partially cylindrical members 8 which may be in parallel relation on; to the other throughout any particular stroke, and these cylindrical members are each considerably less than the width of astroke of a sign character and are grouped together in coalescing relation, following the eneral curvature of the convexity of the sign character stroke. Such a group of coalescing cylinders forms a multi-lens-like or magnif ing surface by which the prismatic sur ace of the rear face 7 is mag-- Under some circumstances it may be found to be advisable to produce the strokes of the sign character upon one surface of a glass plate 5, as indicated in Fig. 4, with the strokes in the form of partial cylinders 8. In the form shown in Fig. 4: the plate 5 is backed up by another glass plate 11 on the' face of which remote from the plate 5 there are produced prisms '7, the plates being united in any suitable manner.

The effects produced by the structure of Fig. 4 are similar to those produced when the plate having the character strokes in relieg has the rear face prismatic as in Figs. 2 to Artificial light reaching the rear face of the sign character is broken up into a great number of rays passing to the outer face of the sign character in a multitude of directions and then further diverted by the lens-like construction of the relief face of the si character. With such construction the e ect of the sign character by artificial light is greatly enhanced and the character is more brilliantly and evenly illuminated than is the case with relief characters having a prismatic backing, but without theseries of substantially parallel coalescing.

partial cylinders which extend lengthwise of the character strokes whether such strokes be straight or curved.

The multi-lens-like form of sign character is' particularly attractive by daylight, and especially with the prismatic backing such a sign character is-strikingly brilliant by daylight and is free from dark spots or lines which are obtrusively apparent in the absence of the prismatic backing. By daylight the light rays entering the outer face of the sign character are reflected back and diverted toward the eye of the observer, so that the character strokes are almost as attractively and brilliantly illuminated as they are at night by artificial light and may be observed from almost any angle, since the daylight effect, especially in direct sunlight, approaches the brilliancy and vividness of appearance produced at night by strong artificial light. This is due both to the prismatic backing which returns the greater portion of the light to the eye of the observer, and to the lens-like form of the character stroke diverting the reflected light at greater angles than would be the case were the character strokes not in relief, or if in relief of some non-magnifying form.

Should dark lines beproduced because of out of vision refraction of artificial light,

- or out of vision reflection of daylight, they are so surrounded by light rays reaching the eye of the observer as to be obliterated by I the blending of such surrounding light rays.

The prisms of the prismatic surfacemay be of various forms and arrangements, but should be relatively small, so that they are not distinctly and individually visible at the usual distance of observation and, more-.

over, the surfaces of these prisms are arranged at such angles to the front of the sign that with the lens-like relief strokes there are always a multitude of areas of total reflection of light by day light no matter what be the angle of observation w1 th respect to the sign character and by artificial light the light rays are refracted in a multitude of directions and are further diverted or refracted by the lenticular relief surface to cause the sign character to appear tobe illuminatedfrom any angle of observation as by a' source of light of as great an area as that defined by the outline of the sign character, when in fact sign characters of smaller dimensions require but a single incandescent electric lamp of, say, 25 to 40 Watts current consumption when of the character known as tungsten lamps, and only two such lamps for sign characters of relatively large size. By way of example it may be stated that a single 40 watt tungsten incandescent electric lamp is ample for a sign character approximating eight inches in height, or even larger.

The invention is not limited to the use of any specific form of prismatic surface, since the prisms may be regular or irregular, but should in general be of rather small individual size with their faces so related to the visible portion of the sign character as to coact with the lens-like sur faces to produce the desired brilliant effect, especially by daylight, and to produce a great multitude of divergent rays under artificial light.

In Fig. 5 of the drawing there is indicated a form of prismatic surface which may be employed instead of the prismatic surfaces more or less schematically illustrated in the other figures of drawing. In Fig. 5 the prisms are shown as, having square bases with regular sloping sides and truncated apices.

By making the relief surface lens-like the character is more clearly defined, since the edges which would otherwise appear more or less ragged, become sharper and clearcut on account of the light being bent into the line of vision at the extreme edges.

What is claimed is 1. A sign character of light transmitting material with the visible face having the strokes in relief and formed of coalescing cylindrical lenses elongated in the direction of the strokes of the sign character, and the rear face prismatic and otherwise substantially flat.

2. A sign character of light transmitting material with the visible face of the strokes in relief and formed of coalescing cylindrical lenses elongated in the direction of the length of the strokes of the sign character, and the rear face where visible through the strokesof the sign character prismatic and otherwise substantially flat.

3. A sign character of light transmitting material with the visible face of the strokes of the sign character in relief and formed of coalescing cylindrical lenses elongated in the direction of the. length of the strokes ofthe sign character, and the surface remote from the visible face backed up by prisms.

. 4. A sign character of light transmitting material comprising a sheet of glass having the strokes of the sign character in relief and made up of cylindrical lenses elongated in the direction of the length of the strokes with the lenses in each stroke arranged in parallelism, and a backing. for the glass sheet having the surface remote from the sign character prismatic to provide many reflecting surfaces visible through the strokes of the sign character.

A sign character of light transmitting material with the visible face in relief and having the strokes made up of cylindrical lenses elongated in the direction of the length of the strokes and those in each stroke arranged in parallelism, the remote surface of the sign character being prismatic and otherwise substantially flat.

G. A sign character of light transmitting material with the observed or front face having the strokes in relief, and each stroke composed of elongated and substantially parallel coalescing lenses, and the rear face substantially flat and prismatic and composed of a relatively large number of relatively small prisms distributed over said rear face of the sign character and visible through the strokes.

7. A sign character of light transmitting material having the strokes in relief and each made up of a plurality of substantially parallel convex ribs coalescing at their long meeting edges, with a substantially fiat prismatic face to the rear of the observed face of the sign character, said prismatic face benor a. writer.

Witnesses:

L. NORMAN FISUHER, A. J. Cnor'rs. 

